It’s been awhile since Liza or I have posted. I decided to go back to school and it took up much more time than I was expected and Liza’s life has gotten equally busy in different ways. She approached me about getting back into the swing of things. We both love books and love to share our love of books. We want to focus more on indie or lesser known authors who deserve recognition. The industry is hard for new names or indie names. Now onto today’s book!

Evie

PS. I think I’ll post a blog on Friday to go over all of the books I read in 2016 with a sentence or two about what it’s about and whether or not I liked it.

The Blurb:

Jonathan Hawthorne has lived over a century beholden to one rule: do not meddle in mortal affairs. He’s broken it twice. So when he crosses paths with Cassidy Winters, he’s forced to interfere again.

Strike three. And the third time’s not the charm.

Hawthorne is swept along as Cassidy slips through the cracks in reality.

And being hunted by bands of monsters doesn’t help.

To find the answers they need, they’ll have to play in a dangerous world. One where the odds and rules are stacked against them. They will have to navigate magical courts, queens and lords all while trying to keep Cassidy out of their scheming hands.

If they fail, she will end up a pawn in a plot that will consume them all.

Hawthorne will have to face the consequences of his past, and risk his future to ensure Cassidy can have one of her own.

For a man with all the time in the world–it seems to be running out–fast!

My Review:

R.R. Virdi is one of my favorite Urban Fantasy authors. His Grave Report series (which I’ve reviewed here…and here) are fast paced and full of witty dialogue. I love witty dialogue. So when he announced that he had a new series coming out that existed in the same world as Vincent Graves, but was not about Vincent, I was ecstatic. And then when I found out that this series was going to be Epic Urban Fantasy I was not only ecstatic but my mind was officially blown. I bought it the day it came out and immediately set to reading it.

Let me just sum this up for you in a sentence, in case you’re in a hurry. Dangerous Ways is what you would get if Jim Butcher, Kevin Hearn, Brandon Sanderson, and Robert Jordan (Rest in Peace) could write a book together.

The story is exciting and you just keep wanting more but when you’re done you feel like you’ve been living a different life. I immediately wanted to start on the next book, but then I remembered I’d have to wait.

I want to go more in depth. I want to talk about all of the characters and the relationships, but I do firmly believe that it’s best if you read it for yourself and experience the story as it goes. I have re-written this review four or five times because I keep catching myself giving to much away. Too many character secrets or plot reveals.

If you love Urban Fantasy or Epic Fantasy, or are thinking about giving either genre a try, I cannot recommend this novel enough. You do not need to read his other series first even though they take place in the same universe.

This was scheduled to post last Friday, but for some reason none of my scheduled blog posts are actually being posted. (I suspect this has more to do with my phone where I had been scheduling drafts to post than anything about WordPress. Well… live and learn.)

R.R. Virdi

I recently reviewed the second book in the Grave Report by R.R. Virdi (which you can find here… or the first book’s review here) and all it’s done is made me crave more. So I sent him a message and asked if he would mind doing an interview and HE SAID YES! Here’s my online interview with a really awesome author:

Bibliophile’s Delight: Let’s start off with some Grave Report related questions… Are all of Vincent’s cases going to be in NYC?

R.R. Virdi: For the main body of the series (IE. the novels), yes.

The short stories, which I do have many planned, will take place all over.

BD: Sweet. Does Graves have cases between the NYC cases (novels)?

RRV: Yes, he does; many of the short stories will cover those.

BD: I’m super excited! That leads to me to my next question… When he’s not on a case, where is he? Is he sentient between cases?

RRV: Ah. That I can’t answer. Well I can, but I won’t. Not yet. That’s going to be explained.

BD: Gasp! I am wounded… Okay. Not wounded. Impatient. I’m impatient.

RRV: Haha

BD: Church dropped a huge bomb at the end of the story and it has a lot of possible ramifications, but my first thought (as I’m sure many a fangirl has had) was “does this mean that Vincent and Camilla have a chance?” (Side note that I did not say to Mr. Virdi at the time: I’m shipping this as Vinilla)

RRV: Spoilers?! Sacre bleu! I’m not gonna tell you.
Always wanted to say that after [Jim] Butcher said it to me once at a Q&A.

RRV: Ah. I wanted a hero that had the masked hero effect… ie. Spider-man. Batman. You know who they are…but you can imagine anyone under the mask. Even yourself. It’s a mantle of sorts.

Vincent graves has no set body. Anyone can be Vincent. He’s a hero for everyone.

…and I’m a huge urban fantasy nerd so ta-da.

BD: I like it. I could be Vincent…though I’d have to die horribly first…besides the point…

Here’s a big one, how much time and effort do you put into plotting?

RRV: Plotting?

BD: Are you a pantser?

RRV: I am. That’s not to say I don’t know what will happen. I always know the general idea for each novel. This thing dunnit. Beginning, opening lines, ending, climax, few scenes here and there. That’s natural whether you pants or plot. Your mind’s going to come up with something if you’re a writer.

Fan Art of Camilla Ortiz

BD: Since we’ve seemed to have switched gears… Let’s get into general writerly questions.

RRV: Okay!

BD: How long have you wanted to be a writer?

RRV: Since age 18, so eight years. That’s when I started. I’d like to think..I count as one now??

BD: You do, but you still want to be one…so my question is a valid one lol

What was the first thing you wrote?

RRV: A horrible piece of unfinished fantasy. Twelve chapters where I left off, 200K words. It was a monster. Both in size and writing quality.

BD: So I have heard on the not-so DL that you have another book coming out this December. What can you tell us about it?

RRV: It’s going to push the mythology and lore in my world to a new level. Flesh things out from new perspectives and show that Vincent Graves isn’t the only one dealing with the supernatural.

Church and Vincent Graves Fan Art

BD: Can you let something slip about the main character? Or maybe the blurb?

RRV: Unfortunately, at this time I can’t since its still in editing, and I’m not sure what’s going to happen with the novel completely. As it stands, there are two traditional publishing offers as well that I’ve been really lowkey on talking about because… reasons.

Well, thank you for answering my questions. I can’t wait for your novel coming out in December. Anything else you would like to say?

RRV: You’re awesome.

R.R. Virdi is a blast to talk to… even if he won’t even hint at anything spoilery, which in the long run, I’m probably grateful for. I don’t need the spoilers to keep me interested. I love his novels and will pre-order both The Books of Winter and the Grave Report book 3… as soon as they are available.

Hey! This is a sequel. You can find my review of the first book in the Grave Report here. This review may contain spoilers for that book, so if you consider spoilers to be Satan’s handiwork then click on the link above and read that review. You have been warned.

GoodReads blurb

What do shadows darting across walls, cryptic writing, black fog, and a little girl who can see ghosts have in common? Paranormal investigator and soul without a body, Vincent Graves, has forty-four hours to find out.

To make matters worse, his years of body-hopping and monster-hunting are catching up with him. He’s losing his mind. An old contact has shut him out. To top it all off, something’s skulking through an asylum, killing patients.

Three guesses who might be next, and the first two don’t count. The writing on the wall is not so clear. But one thing is: if he doesn’t figure this out he’s a dead man—well, deader—and a strange young girl might follow. Vincent’s got his back against a wall, and that wall’s crumbling.

Some days it’s not worth it to wake up in someone else’s body.

Review

Let’s just get this straight. R.R. Virdi writes some of the most smartass, nerdy, pun-addled and badass stories I have ever read and I love it. I will sit over here and try not to fangirl all over the place, especially since Mr. Virdi promised me an interview. (Which I’m hoping will be posted on Friday… if I don’t get too caught up in asking questions.)

Vincent wakes up in a mental institution wrapped up all snug in a straight jacket. Getting himself out of the jacket and into a chapel turns out to be one of the easiest challenges that Vincent faces. Church is still as vague and cryptic as ever, but I feel like at some point in the future we’ll actually get to know him a lot better. And, boy, does he drop a huge bomb at the end.

What surprised me about this book was how the characters are still traumatized from the events of the last book. They are all still dealing with the emotional fall out of almost dying and dealing with new things. It’s wonderfully done. Many serial mystery/urban fantasy novels just pretend like what happened in the previous books was not a huge deal. They’ll refer to them, but rarely do the events of previous books take a huge toll on the characters mental states in the current novel. I love that even as the characters are dealing with new horrors, the old ones directly effect how they are dealing with the current ones.

The one thing I don’t like is how Vincent treats Ortiz. He says he trusts her with his life, but he doesn’t trust her with the truth? I get that it’s a lot to handle, but the toll of feeling like every time a “tattoo guy” shows up in her life, she’s going to have to accept that at the end of the case she’ll lose someone she risks her life to help has got to suck. Knowing that Vincent would be back, even in a different body, would probably do wonders for her psyche. That being said… I’d love to read a short story about Camilla Ortiz on her own…

I highly recommend this book to any one who likes urban fantasy, mysteries, or smart-ass characters. Oh! Or mythology. You’ll be googling monsters for days.